molan

[quote name='6v6' timestamp='1429548368' post='2752493'] That's a very kind offer, thank you. I'm not that far away actually (about an hour south in Hampshire) - so there's a reasonable chance I'll turn up with credit-card later this week to buy a backup. A loan amp would be great, but I gig too regularly to risk putting myself in this position again - I should really get a spare head after having this one fail. See what I did there, I turned the exploding amp disaster into a new-amp-day! Don't tell the wife! [/quote] The MarkBass distributor is based in Swallowfield - almost on Hampshire border I think. Not sure if this is where repairs are carried out though.

Time period on warranties and guarantees is a very grey area. Technically EU law says you have a 2 year period and English law actually extends to 6 years. However, there's an onus on the customer to prove the unit has failed due to faulty manufacture rather than some sort of user initiated problem or misuse - or even that it might have worn out in a 'reasonable' period. On electrical goods this gets harder and harder to prove after a 6 month period has elapsed. When it comes to claiming you can cite these regulations and it'll usually help to move things along a bit faster. The comment about the UK guys saying that they will look at local repair on a case by case basis could be because the distributors changed over a couple of years ago. If your head was supplied by the old distributor then I think this might complicate things a little. Where are you based? Our shop has a pre-owned LMIII you could borrow for a gig if you're desperate. Might not be practical if you are a long way off though

Looks like we're on holiday

Could just be $ vs £ strength. Lots of US instruments and amps/cabs are creeping up because of the unhealthy exchange rates.

[quote name='xgsjx' timestamp='1429431378' post='2751246'] Did the shop fob you off regarding the LM3 or did they send it to MarkBass? [/quote] The UK MarkBass guys are brilliant at handling warranty stuff. They take away all the hassle and handle everything very professionally.

[quote name='Old Man Riva' timestamp='1429355991' post='2750717'] I really liked Natalie Prass but when I listened to her studio stuff it seem incredibly tame by comparison - it's a shame as the live stuff has a nice edge to it. [/quote] I thought the first Natalie Prass song, Bird of Prey, was the highlight of the show by quite a distance. I've got the album and it's grown on me but, like a lot of people, there's a bit more edge and rawness to her live sound which seems to suit her voice and general vibe. Album version has fairly prominent strings but I preferred the horn arrangement on Later. Overall bass balance was Ok on my TV. Reasonably high end Sony in HD but not through hi-fi speakers. I could certainly hear some nice little runs Natalie Prass' bassman was playing

[quote name='chris_b' timestamp='1429350142' post='2750629'] DR stings always kept their tone longest for me, but I wouldn't say they sounded like new for months. IMO Dunlop Super Bright steel strings would be the ones you want to try. [/quote] I'd say Super Brights as well. Good strings, last pretty well and stay zingy and don't cost a lot.

I know a top pro player (with very good ears indeed!). He's always been a maple board P player and spent months trying to find a rosewood board bass that was as similar as possible to his maple board bass. He finally found one, took it out on a recording session and a gig and decided that rosewood boards just didn't work for him How much of this was 'perception' I really can't say but he really does have an excellent ear and felt he could hear the difference.

I've almost always favoured J's over P's and a few years back acquired my 'dream' bass - a '63J in sea foam green. All original apart from being Refinished in the 70's but my local luthier thinks it was originally sea foam. It now has dings, cigarette burn marks, fading where stickers have been on it etc. Very dark rosewood board and a neck to die for, certain the nicest Fender J neck I've ever played. The day it arrived a certain Paul Turner happened to pop round to drop something off and promptly borrowed it for a week He proclaimed it might just have a better slap tone than his beloved '66 J! I've gigged it a few times, rehearsed it a lot but never recorded it. The sad thing is that a long term neck problem means I'm regularly struggling to play 34" scale basses so it may well have to go at some point. It's increased in value a little each year that I've owned it which kinda justifies keeping it but it just seems a shame that it's not out gigging regularly so maybe it'll finally go this year

[quote name='sshorepunk' timestamp='1429129552' post='2748415'] A pair of oxblood db112 would be nice! [/quote] Tommy has a load of new vinyl and grille cloth options. Lots of the vinyl are now 'stock' colours and not special orders so this means they are relatively small up-charges and availability is faster. Really looking forward to the pair of dark blue vinyl with beige/brown cloth cabs that have just been ordered

I rehearse with a different bass almost every week but when it comes to gigging these days I pretty much always stick to my white Ritter Cora into a small pedal board with a Demeter Compulator, Aguilar Octamizer and Filter Twin then up to a Demeter VTB 800 Minnie head and into a Bergantino AE210. Cora both pickups on full, tone controls set flat, sometimes cut a bit of treble on certain songs. Compulator generally used on rockier songs (I have it set as a bit of a volume boost), octave and envelope filter on a couple of songs each. On the amp I use the 'dark' setting, mids relatively flat, bass about 14:00, treble about 10:00. Presence 9:00 unless I feel the room is a bit dull and then I'll boost a bit more. For some gigs I use the gold glitter Lull P bass. It's a bit rounder and thumpier than the Ritter so I might not boost bass as much. I'm always in the PA with a very clean sound. Just adding a bit of low boost through the subs really.

I'm quite partial to a bit of French prog - I've seen Magma and Ange several times

[quote name='wateroftyne' timestamp='1428861293' post='2745392'] Very enlightening. Cheers, Barrie! [/quote] Tommy is the 'enlightening' one really

I've never really got on with the Terror and found it a bit 'one-dimensional'. Seemed to me to have one really good tone and, if you liked that, it was great but I found to difficult to get anything else from it. However, having heard the OB1 yesterday I much preferred it. It was really easy to dial in a nice warm clean tone with very little eq and then to add some grit using the blend. I'm not really a distortion or grit player but it was interesting that I dialled in almost exactly the same settings that Sean liked for a grittier sound. One thing that impressed me was that you could use some fairly subtle eq to to 'tune' the head for different cabs. As Lloyd mentions above, we got a really nice grindy rock tone using the little baby tks cermic loaded S112 cabs. Conversely we also found a particularly musical sound running the head clean into a pair of tks neo 1126's. One thing we all seemed to agree on was just how lovely and warm the Orange was into those tkx neo cabs. Really not what you'd expect from a neo set-up at all. Loads of volume on tap too - especially when firing through the, more sensitive, EAD cab. Managed to get the roof shaking quite nicely

[quote name='LLOYDWT' timestamp='1428845752' post='2745147'] Hehe, Billie Apple might be right, it doesn't take much to confuse me. I thought the first TKS cabs we plugged the Orange into were Neo and the second ones were Ceramic, the first ones had a vintage 60s style front with cloth over the grill. I remember saying to Barrie I couldn't believe they were neos as they sounded very full. Sadly I left before the Jule Monique came out (probably best for my bank balance). It looked like a work of art. Massively impressed with the whole TKS range though as I'd heard so little about them before hearing them. [/quote] [size=4]You weren't confused at all Lloyd [/size] [font=arial, sans-serif][size=3] [size=4]The S112 uses ceramic magnet 12s while the 1126/2126 have neodymium magnets. The ones with the grille cloth we set up first were the neo-equipped 1126's. The snakeskin 12's and the white 2x12 + 6 were the ceramic ones.[/size] [/size][/font][font=arial, sans-serif][size=3] [size=4]The reason for the S series being lighter is that the neodymium magnet speakers used in 1126/2126 have a design that requires a larger magnetic force on the voice coil, Tommy uses neodymium in them to keep the weight down, but they still get heavier than the S version. It would be hard to make a ceramic speaker with the same capability, and even if it was possible it would make a ceramic version of the 2126 weigh maybe 40 kg or more.[/size][/size][/font]

Saw some new colours today - there's a very cool dark blue

We use the TH500 as our reference head in the shop. Seems to work with every cab we've ever partnered it with

I've gigged a StageClix a few times. Absolutely faultless each time

I've played a vintage Fender one and it kinda left me cold. Bit of an obvious thing thing to say but it was neither bass nor guitar and I couldn't find a use for it

Having read this thread all the way through, and also having played the bass in question I think it's interesting how the writer has approached the review. He's a Wal owner and knows his high end basses and there's no hint of him trying to be overly pretentious or fawning to the Fodera 'mystique' that's definitely out there. A few choice quotes are: [i]"This review will contain a lot of facts, but one will overshadow all the rest. It’s the ultimate elephant in the room – the number you’re thinking about right now: £11,000. That’s for a bass guitar, mind, not a family car. The Amboyna Burl Monarch Elite is by some way the most expensive bass we’ve ever reviewed in this magazine’s 13-year history, and in these financially straitened times, can a five-figure pricetag be justified?"[/i] [i]"up close, it’s a lovely-looking instrument. You would expect a hand-crafted bass guitar to have a great build quality but, as you’d expect, this instrument takes that finesse to an entirely new level."[/i] [i]"The pickups are made by Fodera in conjunction with Seymour Duncan. Crucially, because this is what you’re paying big bucks for, both the front and back pickup are housed in the wood taken from the body, mimicking the same layers and pin-striping; these take three entire days to craft and cost $550 on their own. They are truly remarkable to look at"[/i] [i]"If the build quality is strong, the playability of this bass is where you really discover what a remarkable instrument this is"[/i] [i]"Tonally the bass comes into its own, with a huge range of options – and here is definitely where a large chunk of your £11,000 is being spent"[/i] [i]"So far, so standard for any bass worth more than a grand. So why pay 11 times more? Simply this: every other bass I have played involves compromise – on sound, tonal variety, playability, controls. This bass doesn’t appear to know what compromise is. It is an instrument that you just don’t want to put down. Everything else – practice, rehearsal, tweaking sounds – comes after this. Add this to a huge range of tonal options and you really have something very special. I sat with this bass for two hours. It was effortless to play. I had to drag myself away"[/i] [i]"It’s difficult to think of an instrument as close to perfection when it also comes along with a price tag of £11,000. But if you have that much money to spend on a bass, perhaps that sum doesn’t mean to you what it means to most people. Whether it be cars or motorbikes or bicycles or guitars, if you pay at the top of the relevant price band you should get something special. [/i] [i]If you accept that you could spend a quarter of this pricetag on a very good bass, and that the more you spend over that amount the smaller will be the incremental payoff in terms of improvement, you’ll appreciate that what you have here is close to the very best. Personally, I fell in love with this instrument, and if I had £11,000 to spend, I would buy it in an instant" [/i] I think he covers a lot of what's been discussed here and does so in a very down to earth way whilst completely acknowledging the high cost - when it comes down to it it's obvious that he was blown away by it and I think that's where the 8 out 10 is coming from in terms of 'value' and the 10 out of 10 on other scores.